An endoscope typically images a body cavity, and in order to image the cavity the cavity must be illuminated.
U. S. Patent Application 2009/0076329 to Su et al., whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a disposable stereoscopic endoscope which has two imaging sensors and a solid state illumination source arranged inside the endoscope.
U. S. Patent Application 2011/0174861 to Shelton et al., whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a surgical instrument with wireless communication between a control unit and a remote sensor. The disclosure states that the instrument may include a display powered by a battery and controlled by the control unit.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,410,462 to Navok et al., whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a hermetic endoscope assemblage having compound optical widows. The disclosure states that the compound optical windows may have separate panes for an imaging system and an illumination system.
A “DUR-D” ureteroscope, produced by Olympus Corporation, of Tokyo, Japan, uses an endoscope protection system which exploits the ability of a CMOS sensor incorporated into the ureteroscope to detect colors. Information transmitted from the CMOS sensor to a control unit of the ureteroscope is used to quickly shut down a laser of the ureteroscope.
Documents incorporated by reference in the present patent application are to be considered an integral part of the application except that to the extent any terms are defined in these incorporated documents in a manner that conflicts with the definitions made explicitly or implicitly in the present specification, only the definitions in the present specification should be considered.